AXA Investment Managers launches the ‘AXA IM Research Award’ for a second year in partnership with the AXA Research Fund

• The award will recognise transformative scientific research focused on solutions seeking to enable a just and green transition.
• Candidates must have demonstrated novelty, innovation and impact in their research in the specified area.
• The winner will be granted €100,000 in recognition of the impact of their research.
• Deadline for applications is 24th October 2022.

 AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM), in partnership with the AXA Research Fund, today announces the launch of its ‘AXA IM Research Award’ for a second year following the success of last year’s award focussed on the Climate Transition¹  and will support an advanced researcher between PhD + 8 years and PhD + 12 years maximum.

The AXA IM Research Award supports AXA IM’s ambition to be a leading global responsible asset manager. This year, the award will look to recognise transformative research focused on solutions seeking to enable a just and green transition as science and research remain at the forefront of discovering new solutions to help the world become sustainable.

Nominees are expected to demonstrate the novelty, innovation, and impact of their research in the following areas:

1. Innovative solutions and approaches to climate change mitigation that incorporate social factors and enable the world to reach Net-Zero by 2050.
2. Novel approaches aimed at encouraging how, as a global society, we encourage a shift in human behaviour towards transitioning to a Net-Zero world and what the milestones are to achieve this.
3. Nature-Based Solutions as a key component of our climate transition & biodiversity protection, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Effectiveness and co-existence with other proposed solutions.
4. Innovative technology and processes to help measure biodiversity, for example soil diversity, as a means to further understand its inherent connection with climate change.
5. Measurement and tracking as the crux of the climate change issue, both in terms of assessing our limits and the extent of success or failure in reducing CO2 levels and other pollutants. For example, carbon pricing or alternative approaches to financial and economic incentives to CO2 (and other warming gas) reductions and measurement methodologies for both GHG emissions reduction and CO2 removal.
6. Beyond CO2, the reduction of other shorter lived climate forcers as a contribution to warming reduction.

The winner will be granted €100,000 in recognition of the impact of their research. The award must be dedicated to future research purposes and will be paid to the university with which the researcher is affiliated.

Marco Morelli, Executive Chairman at AXA Investment Managers, said: “As a global responsible investor, employer and business, we launched this award last year as part of our commitment to tackling climate-related risks that threaten the future of our planet. In partnership with AXA Research Fund, we are committed to going beyond what is expected of us by empowering researchers and the scientific community through grants, awards or donations that will help to drive the solutions we need to overcome the world’s sustainability problems.”

Last year, Dr. Floor van der Hilst, from Utrecht University (Netherlands), was awarded the AXA IM Research Award for her work on “Sustainability of Bioenergy” with the €100,000 grant being used to further support her research line that focusses on land-use change dynamics resulting from biomass production and related impacts.

For full details on the nomination and submission process, please see here: https://www.axa-im.com/championing-sustainability/axa-im-research-award

AXA Research Fund

The AXA Research Fund is AXA’s global initiative dedicated to support independent academic risk research to help support decision making . Since 2008, the Fund has supported over 700 research projects, in 320 leading university worldwide, creating a unique network of partner scientists and a vast amount of expert knowledge on key societal risks.